Softly in the Darkness
by William Easley
Summary: As August 2017 begins, Bill Cipher finds himself dwindling, alone, afraid, and direly in need of a friend.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you._

* * *

**Softly in the Darkness**

**(July 31-August 1, 2017)**

* * *

**1: Things Fall Apart**

"No!" Bill Cipher complained that afternoon. "No, no, no, no, no! This can't be happening!"

However, clearly it was happening. The Bill Cipher effigy in the woods—now encased in a protective metal cage—was disintegrating. It no longer resembled a handsome, nattily-attired equilateral triangle. It had eroded into a shapeless lump, not even triangle-shaped, more like a pitted, rutted oval protruding from the earth—a rotting tooth, an ancient tombstone upon which Time had already erased the name of the occupant.

Bill floated around the cage—Fordsy had taken precautions to make sure he couldn't penetrate it, held back not by the iron in the steel or any magical spell, but by the unfathomable power of unicorn hair and moonstones, two forces that Cipher did not understand and could not overcome.

"Yet," he told himself. "If I gave myself enough time, I could figure it out."

When he was on the side through which the sun streamed, Cipher could even glimpse the glittering of gold dust mingled among the fragments and crumbs of stone. Gold, the one element on earth that most closely matched his own extra-dimensional makeup! With enough gold, he could, given a few eons, mold a new body for himself—

But time, like the sands trickling from the dissolving effigy (and into a hypothetical hourglass) was getting away from him.

Cipher knew the general trend. Intellectually, he knew it. He grasped the concept, you might say. He was Bill Cipher! He knew everything!

No, that was a lie. He had a first-class intelligence system, and he relied on spying for most of his information. He knew what was happening because he had been told, warned by old Frilly, the Axolotl (or, perhaps, the Being the Aztecs called Xolotl, whom they worshiped as a god of fire, lightning, deformity, monsters . . . and twins).

Who knew if the Axolotl was the reality behind the Aztec myths? Not Bill Cipher. But he did know that the fire of Xolotl, which destroyed, also tantalized with the possibility of rebirth. Xolotl guided the sun on its perilous passage through the realm of the dead, and Xolotl sent it on its way the next morning, the sun having passed through death and back into life again.

It was said . . ..

Lots of things were said. Lots of things.

However, the one that Cipher had remembered in the instant that his powers had betrayed him, leaving him helpless and fast fading, the instant that panic seized him for the first and only time in his unimaginably long life, the instant that he, Bill Cipher, was reduced to begging—

"A-X-O-L-O-T-L, my time has come to burn! I invoke the Ancient Powers that I may return!"

And the Axolotl, whether it was truly the being the Aztecs called Xolotl or no, heard him and granted him the return he begged for. Conditionally.

It had told Pine Tree—not Bill, but Pine Tree—"One way to absolve his crime: a different form, a different time."

Now that absolution was beginning. The essence of Cipher had been placed within a human child—born with one eye. Xolotl was, after all, the god of deformity. And he was given up for adoption by his mother, who had her own sins to expiate, and this was her way to redemption.

The couple that adopted him was named Sheaffer. They gave him the name William. Billy, now that he was twelve human years old. And he was coming up to his birthday very, very soon.

Oh, the couple who adopted him had twin daughters. And they moved, quite by coincidence, except nothing is ever by coincidence, into the very same house that Dipper and Mabel Pines—twins, Pine Tree and Shooting Star—had lived in for most of their lives, while they moved with their family to a larger house just a few doors down the street.

Now, the bit of Bill that did not go into Billy Sheaffer—his self-awareness, his sense of himself as an identity—had lingered close to the Cipher effigy in Gravity Falls, and, in a frankly cynical bid to earn reincarnation, had saved Pine Tree's life by implanting a few of his alien molecules in Dipper's heart when an extra-dimensional horror had threatened to kill Dipper and freeze time in Dimension 46*\\. The molecules had restarted Dipper's heart and thus time itself, saving Dipper's life and the lives of every other living being in that dimension.

Um—including Bill Cipher. OK, it was a selfish move.

And it had unforeseen consequences. It gave Bill and Dipper a kind of bond. They became—Cipher couldn't believe he was even thinking the word—friends.

Dipper's great-uncle Stanley Pines—whom Bill had mistaken for Stanford Pines, another set of twins, can you believe it?—had tricked Cipher. He had told Cipher that the extradimensional demon had made one mistake. "You messed with my family!"

During his sketchy afterlife hanging out in the Mindscape, Cipher had pondered that without fully understanding it. He'd had a family once. He'd murdered them all. And then destroyed his own home dimension for good measure. Family? What idiot would even care if his family were messed with?

Well—Stanley Pines, obviously. And that somehow made him more powerful than Bill Cipher, older than the galaxy itself, the most devious deviant the Multiverse had ever produced?

Yep.

Though Bill had spent only a few short years linked to Pine Tree, they had taught him a few things. Things about loyalty and courage, about fallibility and the will to overcome it, things about what humans called love.

And at the same time, little Billy Sheaffer was being raised by a loving family, two older sisters, a mom and a dad. And Billy Sheaffer had become friends with the Pines twins down the street and even developed a crush on Mabel.

And now the time had come down to just a few days, a quarter-teaspoonful of grains in the hourglass, because on the thirty-first of August, Bill Cipher, drifting consciousness in the Mindscape, would fuse with Billy Sheaffer. He would become fully human.

Fully . . . mortal.

And he did not understand that concept. How did humans deal with it? The short, short span of life, the removal from Earthly existence that was death?

He needed help.

"Axolotl?" Cipher cried out from the Mindscape. "You there, buddy? Hey, you're always there! You're always everywhere, all the time! I could use a little pep talk here, Xolotl, old chum. You—you're not gonna answer me, are you?"

Cipher drew a metaphorical deep breath. "OK, Oracle, I know you and I don't see eye to eye eye eye eye eye eye eye, but I'm kind of in a deep funk here. Jheselbraum? Hello? Anybody home? No, huh? Look, it's undignified, but I'm . . . I'm scared. There. I said it. Come on, you're the good guys! You gotta talk to me! You have to help me. That's what being good is, right?"

Only silence. That was the thing about the Mindscape. When you were in it with no connection to any of the billions of dreamers who also drifted through, they were as unaware of you as you were of them. Every being for itself, with no company.

What had he told Pine Tree that one time? _Without a vessel to possess, you're basically a ghost! _And later, when a desperate but Mindscape-trapped Dipper had begged Wendy to respond to him, to answer him, and had told Bill Cipher "I'll stop you!" Cipher had asked sarcastically, "How can you stop me if you don't exist?"

Now Cipher knew how Dipper had . . . had felt. So alone. So alone.

Pine Tree. Maybe—Cipher had not been able to break through to him, even in dreams, for many weeks now. But maybe—maybe when the world had become dark, when Pine Tree slept, if he dreamed, just maybe Bill could get in touch with him.

Please dream tonight, Pine Tree.

Because I'm scared.

Because I'm alone.

Please.


	2. Chapter 2

**Softly in the Darkness**

**(July 31-August 1, 2017)**

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**2: The End Is Where We Start From**

Dipper was tired when they got back to the Mystery Shack that evening. He and Wendy were excited at the prospect of having a home—not just a dormitory room, but a home—for their time at college. Mabel was elated—with a close relative (and who, she asked, could be closer than a twin?) living in town and willing to give her a home, she wouldn't have to huddle with three other students in the Freshman Dorm of Olmsted. She could even take Tripper to live with them!

However, after the emotional downs and ups, the uncertainties and dread, and—maybe especially—after Grunkle Stan's little joke of making them think they were all on the verge of arrest for breaking and entering, Dipper felt exhausted. Wendy sensed that—as she sensed everything by touching him—and she sent him an encouraging thought: _We won't celebrate tonight, Dipper. But soon. And we'll really raise the roof!_

—_Thanks, Wen. I'm just—well, kinda wrung out._

_Tell me about it! But I'll give you a goodnight kiss tonight that you can remember forever._

"Whaaat are you two cooking up?" Mabel asked suspiciously.

"Just planning the housewarming," Wendy said.

"Whoo! Housewarming! I have to invite my posse! Hey, presents or no? 'Cause Pacifica gives great presents! I say yes. What day? Let's see . . . Olmsted begins classes on September 6, that's a Wednesday. So that night?"

"Give us some time to get the place neat!" Dipper said. "Windows need washing, we've got to stock the pantry—"

"How about that weekend?" Wendy asked.

"OK, September 9," Mabel said. "I'll send out the RSVP's!"

"Sweetie," Stan said. "When do you plan to move in?"

"The first!" Mabel said.

"Uh-uh," Stan told her. "Think, Pumpkin. Your brother and Wendy will be married."

"Well, they can move into their room—"

Stan sighed. "Look, Mabel, when you get married, don't you think you and your hubby would deserve a little alone time? Remember, Dip and Wendy won't be able to take a real honeymoon right off."

"They could—oh. Oh. OH!" Mabel said. She nudged Dipper with her elbow. "I got the message, Bromancer! So—how about they move in on September the first, and I move in on the fourth, Labor Day? How's that?"

"That'll be fine, Mabes," Wendy said. "We'll have more time in December, during the break. We're talking about doing a better honeymoon—like a week or so—then. But, yeah, having a couple of days to ourselves will be real nice. Thank you for thinking of it, Stan!"

"My pleasure," Stan said. "Hey—Sheila wants me to put in a word for Hawaii. Middle of winter, that's a great place to go!"

"We'll think about it," Dipper said.

They'd already eaten, except Mabel browsed on some leftovers, and they turned in early, before nine. And Dipper nearly floated upstairs under the influence of Wendy's good-night kiss. He had just slipped into bed and picked up his book—not one he wrote, but the one he was reading—when his phone, plugged in and charging on the bedside table, chimed.

It was Billy Sheaffer's number. Dipper answered: "Hi, Billy. What's up?"

"Hi, Dipper. It's later than I thought. Maybe you—"

"It's OK," Dipper said. "I can talk for a while." When Billy remained silent, Dipper asked, "Have you got a problem?"

"I'm scared," Billy admitted. "Uh, I got Mom and Dad to agree that I could come up for when you and Wendy get married. But the other thing. That'll happen then, too, won't it?"

"It will," Dipper said. Early on the morning of August 31—the twins' birthday and possibly entirely by chance also Billy's—the Axolotl had warned Dipper that the last trace of Bill Cipher would leave him. At one time Dipper had believed that, lacking those few molecules of Bill, his heart would stop , but the Axolotl had told him that wouldn't happen now. In fact, he would feel no real pain at the moment of severance.

It had to happen, though, because Billy had to take those molecules into himself, and then the conscious manifestation of Cipher would be joined with Billy's corporeal representation of Cipher in human form. And gradually Billy would gain all of Bill Cipher's memories, though not his extradimensional powers.

Or Dipper hoped that was what the Axolotl had said. It tended to express itself in oracular and poetic fashion, and sometimes it was hard to understand.

However, he said to Billy, "Your sisters are coming up too, right? They're going to celebrate your birthday at the big party."

"Yeah, we're all coming," Billy said. "Where's the, you know, wedding going to be?"

"I guess the City Hall," Dipper said. "There won't be many people there, and it won't be fancy. This is a civil ceremony, just to make it legal. We're having a second celebration in December, because Mabel insists on being the wedding organizer, and because Wendy's dad wants us to have a church wedding. You'll be invited then, too, if we can arrange it after the end of school."

"Tell me about Bill Cipher," Billy said abruptly, all in a rush, as though he'd had to gather all his nerve to make the request.

Dipper hesitated. He'd already told Billy some of the background, but—he hadn't done full disclosure. Not yet. Why worry about it when it was bound to scare Billy, and when Cipher himself would be bonding with the boy before very long?

But then—"I guess you deserve some information," Dipper said. "It isn't pretty. I don't mean to worry you, so let me just start by saying I think Bill Cipher is trying to change, to, uh—you know the expression 'mend your ways?'"

"It means to do better from now on?"

"That's right," Dipper said. "OK. You've seen some of the weird stuff that goes on up here, so don't let this throw you. First, Bill Cipher is very, very old. Older than, um, the Earth, even."

With Billy asking a few questions now and then, Dipper went through a version of the whole story, leaving out only the most nightmarish parts. "Bill destroyed his own home," he said. "He was angry at his family, and he lashed out without thinking. But that made him an outlaw. He was kinda banished, I guess, to a different dimension. And there he kept up his bad ways. Over a long, long time Bill became an interdimensional criminal. Wherever the inhabitants had the power to do it, they threw him out. Finally, he wound up in a place, I guess you'd call it, named the Nightmare Realm. It's not really a dimension, but kind of the space in between dimensions, Grunkle Ford says."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't really know," Dipper admitted. "But it was sort of—well, think of it as a cosmic junkyard. It's where other dimensions tossed things—or beings—they didn't want. Bill wound up becoming the head of a whole band of cosmic outlaws."

"People?"

"Um, monsters," Dipper said. He described one or two—Pyronica, a woman seemingly made of living fire, and Eight-Ball, with those bizarre eyes and a taste for eating people, and the Sweaty Head and Arm Monster that looked horrific but really seemed sort of pathetic, dragging itself around and searching for prey dumb enough to climb into its mouth. "Lots of others, too," Dipper said.

"Why was he even here, then, if he was banished like you said?" Billy asked.

"That's . . . kind of my Grunkle Stan's fault. And mine, too. And Mabel, a little. But most of all, Grunkle Ford started it. Let me tell you about the Mindscape."

Billy seemed to grasp that notion well. "It's the place where dreams come from," he said. "Bad dreams?"

"Maybe not all bad," Dipper said. "But it's a space that you can't get to physically, unless something really improbable happens. It's a mental realm where humans can catch glimpses of other worlds, other universes, where the laws of physics aren't like ours."

"Like in some you can fly?"

"That's a good example. Sometimes people dream they can fly, because in some other reality that's how people get around—they fly, they don't walk."

"I've dreamed I've been flying," Billy volunteered.

"Did it scare you?"

"No. That's funny. In real life, I don't like heights very much. I got real nervous on a plane. Uh, don't tell Mabel that, OK?"

"I won't," Dipper said, smiling. "But that's natural. In the dream, how did you fly? Did you have wings?"

"I don't . . . remember exactly. Um, no wings, I guess. It's just like I wanted to fly, so I did. I just zoomed up in the air, you know."

"Did you ever dream of falling?"

"I don't think so. I don't remember if I did. I know in one kind of dream I don't fly, I float. I mean, I just sort of pick up both my feet and I don't fall, I just hang there, and I can glide around a few inches off the ground."

"Well, that's another example," Dipper said. "The thing is, Grunkle Ford believes most dreams just come from inside you—it's your mind unwinding, storing memories, and coming up with stories through the night. But sometimes in dreams we can connect with others—especially with others like Bill Cipher. He could wander into the Mindscape from the Nightmare Realm. And way, way back in history, he discovered the Earth, through people who were dreaming. He tried to get into our dimension for literally thousands of years."

"Really?"

"That's what he says. He claims that the Egyptians were so impressed with his dream form that they made the Pyramids to try to lure him to their world. The trouble is that just as it's almost always impossible for a person physically to get into the Mindscape, it's also impossible for anyone visiting it from another place to break through into the physical Earth."

"Did Bill want to come to Earth?" Billy asked.

"Oh, yeah. Big time. Bill wanted physical existence in some realm, and he liked Earth because he thought humans would be good slaves and easy to control. He didn't think much of us either physically or mentally."

"But he couldn't come in."

"He needed a doorway to do that." Dipper took a deep breath and spoke about the Rift that Ford—fooled into thinking that Bill Cipher was his friend and Muse—had made possible, that Dipper had the responsibility for, and that Mabel, deceived by Bill in the form of a family friend, allowed to be broken open.

"Then for a long time—except time had just stopped in Gravity Falls—Bill tricked and tormented and did awful things to the people. No reason. Just for fun."

"He's a bully," Billy muttered.

"Yeah, he was," Dipper said. "Well, at the last second, Grunkle Stan fooled Bill, and he lost his physical form. He almost lost his existence altogether, but Cipher asked the Axolotl—that's a supernatural creature that sort of watches over reality—for a second chance. And you're Bill's second chance. I've told you before, the key thing is that you have to show Bill how to be good. That means not being selfish. Caring for other people. Not being quick to lash out if things don't go your way. That's a hard lesson for Bill to learn."

"What happens if I die?" Billy asked in a small voice.

"I think that depends on the kind of person you decide to be," Dipper said. "I guess a very few people are born good or born bad. It's awfully difficult for them to change. But for most of us, it's a decision we make in our minds and carry out in our thoughts and behavior."

"I want to be a good person."

"You can do it," Dipper said. "But you have to do it about every minute of every day of your life. It's not something anybody can do once, like getting a vaccine for measles. It's all in the way you live from day to day."

"Will you be my friend—after?"

"Always," Dipper said. "Any time you're in trouble, or want advice, or just need to talk, I'll be here for you."

"Thanks."

"That's what friends are for," Dipper said.

* * *

The conversation with Billy lasted more than an hour. When he turned out the light—tomorrow was a run day for him and Wendy, and then the long Shack workday started—Dipper felt a little better. Billy was a good kid.

Oh, he got into trouble. He tracked in mud without thinking. He popped a balloon once and scared a stray cat into running wildly into the street and barely being missed by a car. But most of the time, he was careful about other peoples' feelings. Dipper knew, because Mabel had told him, that more than once Billy had stood up against bullies picking on kids smaller than he was. Mabel had heard it from Billy's older sisters, who were proud of him for that.

_Keep it up_, Dipper murmured almost silently. _Keep up the good work._

And, whether it was because of his long talk with Billy or his own anxieties about his coming birthday and all the changes it would bring with it, that night Dipper did something he had done less and less often over time.

He had a vivid dream about Bill Cipher. . ..


	3. Chapter 3

**Softly in the Darkness**

**(August 1, 2017)**

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**3: I've Come to Talk with You Again**

Like most of us, sometimes Dipper remembered his dreams, sometimes they slipped away. If he woke up in the middle of one, a romantic idyll with Wendy or a horrific struggle with some invisible horror on the brink of an active volcano, that stuck with him. Countless others he vaguely recalled on awaking, but then they dissolved like mist in the sun and left not a trace behind.

That night he felt unusually snug. It had been a tiring day, and before midnight a steady, moderate rain began to patter on the roof and the triangle window of the attic, a lulling sound, white noise to lead him into sleep. The night still lay warm on the land, even with the rain outside, and he slept only under one sheet, which he drew around him as he curled up on his side and dozed.

No traffic sounds, no howls of coyotes, no barking of dogs or sorrowful lamentations of owls: just the quiet attic, the rhythm of the rain, the gurgle as it dripped from the eaves and, very faintly, pinged on the lid of the garbage bin. So, he slept, perchance to dream.

It was his and Wendy's wedding day. They were in just such a magistrate's chamber as Franz Kafka might have imagined, the judge on a dais, the bar maybe thirty feet tall, the judge small in the distance but somehow looming over them. Wendy was head and shoulders taller than Dipper again. He stood nervously by her side, aware of a crowd behind him, hoping they had not noticed that though he wore shirt, tie, and jacket, he had forgotten everything below the waist. Maybe they wouldn't notice. It was pretty dark in the courtroom.

Up overhead the judge was flipping through an enormous lawbook, muttering to himself nonsense phrases: "Prima facie, ipso dixit, non compos mentis, ex post facto."

"Kid!" It was Grunkle Stan, somewhere behind him. "You're sunk unless you make him laugh. Show him the card trick!"

"Dip, c'mon, stand up straight," Wendy whispered.

The judge pounded furiously with his gavel. "Who stole the capers?" he thundered.

Dipper was frantically searching his coat pockets. He had a deck of cards somewhere, if he could find it. "Be logical!" Ford urged from behind him. "Pull it out of your ear!"

Even though the judge was so far above him, Dipper could see the man's enraged red face. He pointed a finger at Dipper, and the man's arm was so impossibly long that the fingertip came within an inch of Dipper's nose.

And then the picture froze. No sound. The judge, though his gavel remained raised as if about to pound out Dipper's death sentence. It did not move. His finger remained rock-steady. His writhing mouth did not pronounce the words.

Wendy had become still as a wax statue, and Dipper looked at her standing beside him, clutching a bouquet to her breast. She was wearing her jeans and green-plaid flannel shirt, but also a bridal veil and a long train that trailed off down the aisle and out the distant door of the immense courthouse. She was barefoot, though.

"Wendy?" Dipper asked in a treble, childish voice. He cleared his throat. "We'd better run away!" He grabbed her wrist and felt no psychic connection. "No!"

"Kid?"

The single word fell like a stone into a pool of silence. The voice sounded distorted and far away, but Dipper knew it at once. "Bill?"

"Yeah. Got a minute to talk?"

"I'm kinda in the middle of something here!"

"It'll keep. Sheesh, kid, can't you dream of something upbeat for a change? Frolicking with your girl in a field of daisies? Rolling in the hay with her? Making the beast with two backs? I could get anatomical—"

"OK, let's talk," Dipper said, just to shut him up. Which was as logical as the rest of the dream so far.

"Mindscape?"

"Yeah, OK."

Dipper closed his eyes—in the dream, in real life he knew his eyes must also be closed—and concentrated himself into that monotone world, where everything was built by the contracting company of Nightmare and Insanity, Inc. The courtroom shrank and became the attic bedroom, full of wrong angles and misshapen furniture. In the closet the Invisible Wizard gibbered softly, sounding like a mouse having a nervous breakdown.

"Out in the yard," Dipper said, and then they stood on the lawn in the presence of rain.

"It's raining," Bill observed. That was true only in a sense—the rain simply hung motionless in the air, as if time had stopped for it.

"Stay between the drops," Dipper told him. He couldn't understand why Bill didn't know that already. It was perfectly clear to Dipper. He felt his head. "I got my cap on," he said.

"Good for you. You're also twelve years old again, hotshot."

"Yeah, I am." Cargo shorts, tee shirt, vest, check. And 1looking back at his younger self from his perspective of nearly six years, he smelled himself, a funky body odor. Oh, yeah, he'd been very hit-and-miss about baths and laundry back then. Mabel complained all the time. Only when Ford came back through the Portal and was stand-offish with him and suggested once that he might want to clean up had Dipper's notions changed. Now, seventeen years old in mind but twelve in body, he felt direly embarrassed for his younger self.

"Don't beat up on younger you," Bill's whispery voice came. "Stinking was your way of avoiding social contacts. If you will pardon a blunt observation, you sucked at friendships and romantic connections."

"Yeah, I did," Dipper said. "Where are you? I can't see you."

"I'm here beside your ear, kid. I can't seem to manifest a visible presence. I think I'm fading out. Are you scared?"

"Yeah," Dipper said. "So is Billy Sheaffer."

"I tried to get through to him. Couldn't. It's like all my power is draining away. Could we go to the clearing where my physical remnant is?"

"Sure." And they were there, because the Mindscape operated, more or less, on dreamtime logic.

"Uh—imagine away the steel bars?"

Dipper closed his eyes and opened them again. And blinked. The steel cage was gone. But so was the Bill statue. Now only a stub of it remained amid a pile of scattered fragments and particles. "Is this why you're weak?"

"Who knows? Not me. I got no nose—ah, forget the jokes. I'm scared, too, Pine Tree. Not long now, huh?"

"Four weeks and a bit."

"Yeah. Funny. I can remember trillions of years. I remember the big bang, which wasn't all you think it was. I remember visiting this dirtball when dinosaurs roamed around. No big thrill there, either. I remember King Tut and Julius Caesar and Attila—my kinda guy—and George Washington and 1066 and all that—but it's like they're all pictures in an album. I gotta look at them to recall them. But these past five years—why do they burn themselves into my mind?"

"Maybe because they're the milestone you asked for."

"I invoke the ancient Powers that I may return," Bill muttered. "Yeah. I guess. But it's a price I didn't know I had to pay."

"That's life," Dipper said. "You don't get a vote on whether to be born or not. You shoot out into the light and the noise and—you do the best you can."

"What's the point of it all?" Bill asked.

"What was the point of being immortal?"

"That _was _the point, Pine Tree! To be pointless. If you don't fear the Reaper, you're never a weeper, get it? Tell the truth, there are no consequences. Nothing matters. Nothing lasts. Only . . . you. In my case, me. I used to be immortal. Not immoral. Amoral. There's a difference, look it up. Now . . . looks like I'm gonna be mortal, huh?"

"So now you have the one last chance you asked for," Dipper heard himself saying, though it was almost as though someone else was speaking through him, as if he'd become a ventriloquist's puppet for—the Oracle, maybe? Or the Axolotl? "Bill, philosophers have argued about the meaning of life and death since philosophy started. We have guesses in the dark. That's all. But me—" and now it was all Dipper again—"well, I think that the point is to do your best. To help others and to prevent harm when you can. To try to leave the world just a little bit better for your having passed through it."

"Too simple."

"Too true."

"It reminds me of Kung Fu Tse. Little fat guy." Bill fell silent for a few moments, as if thinking. "Do nothing to others that you would not want done to you." That was one of his. Doesn't read funny, but the guy had a great delivery."

"He was Chinese," Dipper said. "In English, we call him Confucius. We have a saying like that, too: Do to others that which you would want others to do to you."

"So maybe it's so simple it's complicated."

"Bill, why can't I see you? Are you very small for some reason?"

"Reason enough, Pine Tree. I've lost the power to manifest. Not even a phantasm of a body. Best I can do is the voice, and that's hard." A long pause fell, absolute silence. Then Bill admitted, "I think I'm losing everything that's me."

Dipper noticed that the raindrops had begun to crawl, slowly, like an ant with injured legs. "Time's starting."

"I can't hold it off. What's going to happen to me, Pine Tree?"

Dipper felt a stirring sense of urgency. Bill was truly afraid. Trying to reassure him, Dipper said, "I think—I don't really know, but I think—you're going to sort of go to sleep. And when you wake up, you'll be in Billy's body. But not like you were in mine that time with the puppet show. You may not be completely conscious for a long time. But gradually you'll become part of Billy, and he'll be you. Try to remember how you're feeling now, Bill. Try not to do any harm to other people, like Confucius told you."

"I'm scared, Pine Tree."

"Everyone gets scared. Billy has his family. You have me. You're never going to be alone."

"You'll stick with the kid?"

"I promise," Dipper said. Now he was beginning to feel the raindrops.

"I'm fading, Pine Tree. Thanks. And tell Shooting Star and Red I said thanks to them too. And Fordsy and even . . ." the voice shrank to a faint mosquito-whine level, but Dipper was fairly certain that the last word was "Stanleeeee."

"We'll meet again," Dipper said.

He was so tired he closed his eyes just for a moment, out there in the black-and-white woods. The rain drummed louder, and when he opened his eyes, Dipper found himself in his bed up in the attic of the Mystery Shack. He rolled over in bed and reached for his phone to check the time: 2:26. It was August 1 already.

And the rain drummed on the roof, and the trash can pinged as the gutters sent the miniature waterfall down to it. Though he'd slept only four hours, if that, Dipper didn't feel tired any longer. He got up and went to the bow window. He stretched out, as much as he could—he'd grown a lot since being twelve—and with his back against one wall of the little alcove, he looked out at the night world.

Soos had left the outside lantern on. He often did that in bad weather. "In case there's like somebody who breaks down on the road and needs a place to come, dude," he had explained once. "The Mystery Shack won't turn anybody away ever."

Do unto others. Some people said it. Soos lived it.

Dipper recalled his dream vividly this time. Why the heck was he standing there in the courtroom with a bare butt? Why didn't Wendy have shoes? Why had he shrunk so small that he wasn't as tall as his bride? What did it all mean?

"That I've got a little bit of Mabel's chaos in me," Dipper told himself.

The dream seemed silly now.

Though Dipper hadn't admitted it to Bill Cipher, he, too, dreaded the coming time when their minds would be separated. No more visits from Bill in the Mindscape.

"Gonna miss those," Dipper murmured, surprising himself.

It was true, though. Of course, he could always call Billy Sheaffer and talk to him.

It wouldn't be the same as talking to Bill Cipher, though.

Or, to make matters worse—

It just might be the same, after all.

After half an hour, Dipper went back to bed. He lay down and didn't wake up again until Wendy came and kissed him. "Not gonna run today," she announced. "It's pouring out there, won't let up until ten or eleven, weatherman says. And another front rolling in tonight. Seasons changing, I guess. Move over."

She slipped into bed beside him. "You dreamed about me last night," she teased.

"Yeah. Kind of embarrassing. You picked up on that when we kissed?"

"Got a flash. On your to-do list, write _Wear pants to the wedding._

"Ever have those dreams where you're naked in public?"

"Mm, now and then. Doesn't seem to be a big deal in the dream. I mean, people look at me funny and all, but they don't scream at me to put something on. Crazy, huh? I guess we're all go a little nuts in our dreams."

They were snuggled close, and she thought to him, _What's this about Bill Cipher?_

—_He came to talk to me in the Mindscape. He's scared._

_Yeah? Do him good, be on the other side for a change._

—_I'm a little scared, too._

_Of me?_

—_No, never. That I won't measure up._

_Well, I think we'll do just fine together._

—_Am I pathetic for worrying about stuff like that even now?_

_No. You're Dipper. _She kissed him again. _And I wouldn't have you try to be anything other than that._

They lay in each other's arms, sharing thoughts, sharing feelings, and Dipper sighed, accepted himself for what he was, for what that was worth, and decided to take life as it came.

Best he could do, he thought.

But with his parents, Ford and Stan, Mabel and Wendy having his back—

The best would surely be good enough.

* * *

The End


End file.
